THE NEWS

If you or someone you love has had cataract surgery, you know how routine the whole thing can feel. You arrive, the surgeon does the procedure, and you are usually back home the same day. Now a robot is entering that familiar routine.ForSight Robotics says its JASPER Robotic Surgical Platform has now been used in 26 fully robotic-assisted cataract surgeries in human patients. According to the company, every procedure was completed robotically without the surgeon having to switch to a manual operation. That may sound like the robot took over the operating room. It did not.New! Free live CyberGuy class: Protect Your Money From Today’s Biggest ThreatsJoin us Saturday, August 29, at 10 AM ET for a free CyberGuy LIVE class covering five simple steps to help defend yourself against AI scams, fraud, identity theft and financial hacks. Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson will explain how to set up bank alerts, strengthen your account logins, protect your phone number, freeze your credit and help secure your retirement savings against unauthorized transfers. No technical experience is needed. You’ll also receive our financial protection checklist, and every registrant will get a link to the class recording afterward.Reserve your free spot today at CyberGuyLive.com.ROBOT LEARNS TO DISMANTLE BROKEN MACHINESJASPER works through surgeon-controlled telemanipulation. The doctor directs the procedure while the robotic system translates those commands into tiny movements inside the patient’s eye. That matters because we’re starting to see robots take on bigger roles in surgery. However, the details about who is actually in charge can get lost in the headline. Fully robotic-assisted cataract surgery reaches 26 patientsForSight announced its first-in-human robotic cataract surgery earlier this year. The company has since completed another 14 procedures, bringing its total first-in-human clinical experience to 26 patients. ForSight says all 26 procedures were completed with JASPER without converting to conventional manual surgery. The patients also received the same types of anesthesia commonly used in cataract surgery. Doctors used either topical anesthesia or mild sedation depending on the patient. Everyone went home the same day. That may sound like a small detail next to the robot, but I think it is one of the more interesting parts of this story.ForSight is trying to show that robotics can fit into the way cataract surgery already works. The goal is to add robotic technology without turning a familiar outpatient procedure into something completely different. So far, the company says JASPER has worked within that normal clinical routine. Still, 26 patients is a small group. This is early clinical experience, not proof that robotic cataract surgery is ready for widespread use.The phrase “fully robotic-assisted” needs a little unpacking because it can easily sound like JASPER is making decisions on its own. It isn’t. The surgeon controls the procedure through telemanipulation. JASPER then translates those commands into movements by the robotic instruments working inside the eye.The system gives the surgeon high-definition 3D visualization. It can scale movements and filter out natural hand tremor. Real-time eye tracking helps JASPER respond as the eye moves during surgery. ForSight also uses computer vision to help support the surgeon during the procedure. The big difference here is that JASPER is designed to perform the complete cataract procedure, rather than stepping in for only one part of the operation. The doctor still decides what happens next and remains in control throughout.We have seen other approaches to robotic surgery move in different directions. CyberGuy previously covered an AI-powered robot that independently completed a key phase of gallbladder surgery on a lifelike surgical model. JASPER takes a more hands-on approach from the surgeon’s perspective. The robot handles the physical movements, but the doctor is still calling the shots.COULD A PAINT-ON ELECTRONIC TATTOO SPOT HEART ATTACKS?Cataract surgery is already one of the most common operations in the world. ForSight says more than 30 million procedures are performed each year globally. That gives this technology a very different kind of potential impact. We are not talking about a robot built for an extremely rare procedure. If systems like JASPER eventually prove safe and practical, they could enter a part of medicine that touches millions of people every year.Robotic surgery is also beginning to stretch beyond the traditional operating room. In March, CyberGuy reported on a London surgeon who remotely guided a robot to remove a patient’s prostate cancer from about 1,500 miles away. More recently, researchers tested humanoid robots during live gallbladder surgeries in a preclinical study. Human surgeons remotely controlled those robots too. JASPER brings that same idea of surgeon-controlled robotics to the eye, where tiny movements matter enormously. ForSight believes the technology could give surgeons greater precision and stability. The company also sees JASPER as a possible foundation for future AI-enabled surgical tools.Before you start asking your eye doctor when the robot is arriving, there is an important reality check. JASPER is still under design and development and has not been approved for commercial use. ForSight is continuing clinical work as it moves toward additional studies and regulatory submissions. There is also one number in the announcement that deserves a closer look: 100%. ForSight says 100% of the 26 procedures were completed robotically without switching to manual surgery. That is impressive, but it is also very specific.The figure does not mean JASPER has a 100% success rate. Nor does it prove the system is safer than conventional cataract surgery. We also do not yet know whether patients will have better long-term outcomes. Those questions need much more evidence. Whenever you see a big percentage attached to a new medical technology, look at exactly what the number measures. In this case, it measures robotic completion of the procedure.If you need cataract surgery today, this does not change your treatment options. JASPER isn’t a commercial system that you can request from your eye doctor. What it does give us is a preview of how surgery could evolve. Instead of a surgeon physically manipulating every instrument by hand, the doctor could control a robotic system that translates those decisions into extremely precise movements. For eye surgery, that could be a big deal.The technology may eventually help surgeons work with greater stability. It could also open the door to new ways of performing highly specialized procedures. But there is a difference between something working in 26 patients and something being ready for millions of people. Researchers still need larger studies. Regulators will have to examine the system closely. Doctors will also want to see how robotic cataract surgery compares with the procedures they already perform every day. For now, JASPER gives us an intriguing look at where eye surgery may be heading.What grabs me about this story isn’t simply the fact that a robot was involved in eye surgery. We’ve been watching robots move deeper into medicine for years. What gets my attention is how normal ForSight says the experience remained for the patient. People received familiar anesthesia and went home the same day. Meanwhile, a surgeon controlled a robotic platform through the complete cataract procedure. That tells me the real test for medical robots may be whether they can fit into existing care without making everything more complicated. At the same time, 26 patients is still 26 patients. I want to see larger studies and a clearer picture of how patients do over time. Another big question is whether robotic surgery actually improves results or mainly gives surgeons a different way to perform the same procedure. Then there is the AI question. ForSight says JASPER could eventually support AI-enabled surgical capabilities. That could push this technology into a very different territory down the road. Right now, though, the surgeon is still firmly in charge.If your eye doctor told you a robot would perform the physical movements during cataract surgery while the surgeon controlled every step, would you be comfortable with that or would you want the traditional approach? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.comSign up for my FREE CyberGuy ReportCopyright 2026 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.

A drone strike on a minibus in the Ukrainian frontline city of Kherson killed at least 4 people and injured 5 others amid a rise in Russian attacks.

Unitree IPO Soars 460% As “Strong Retail Appetite” May Ignite Physical AI Listing Boom

Summary:

Unitree Soars 460% in Shanghai IPO 
Solactive China Humanoid Robotics Index Plunges As IPO “Drew Funds Away” 
Unitree IPO 5,550 Times Oversubscribed As UBS Says Grey Market Points To 3.5x Open
Unitree Robotics, one of the most closely watched technology IPOs in Shanghai this year, made its trading debut earlier Wednesday and closed up a staggering 460%. The Chinese humanoid robot maker raised 6.1 billion yuan, or about $904 million.

The Hangzhou-based company, formerly known as Yushu Technology Co., climbed as much as 629% from its IPO price of 150.80 yuan before paring some of those gains.

Retail bids for Unitree exceeded the 7.07 trillion yuan raised by memory chip giant CXMT in its July IPO. We pointed out yesterday, hours before the IPO, that the offering was more than 5,500 times oversubscribed.

Unitree plans to use the IPO proceeds to improve AI models, advance humanoid robot research, develop new products, and rapidly expand manufacturing capacity to maintain its lead in the physical AI race and expand market share. 

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Ian Ma said, “Unitree’s debut surge signals strong appetite for China’s embodied AI sector,” adding that the IPO proceeds should accelerate product development and commercialization. 

Analysts at Industrial Securities commented on the broad market reaction across the space, saying, “Robotics stocks plunged as Unitree Robotics’ strong trading debut in Shanghai drew funds away.”

The Solactive China Humanoid Robotics Index (Bloomberg ticker: SOLCHRBP Index), which tracks publicly traded Chinese companies involved in the humanoid robotics supply chain, dropped 10% following the listing. The index is down 25% this year.

UBS analyst Lucy Zhang pointed out that the listing debuted amid an overall market selloff:

A-share tech names followed the US and broader Asia tech selloff, with the STAR50 down 6% amid elevated bond yields and geopolitical uncertainty.

Market leadership rotated into defensive sectors, including banking, energy and coal.

Retail flows remained heavily concentrated in recent IPO speculation rather than broader market beta, with Unitree (#688836 CH) the focal point, trading around RMB885/share and up 486% from its IPO.

Extreme two-way price action suggests increasingly speculative trading conditions. Half-day turnover reached RMB1.63 trn, while market breadth was extremely weak, with 4,927 decliners vs. 580 advancers.

Coal stocks outperformed as a defensive haven amid the tech pullback, supported by planned coke price increases of RMB50-55 per tonne effective Aug. 20. Robotics names fell 7% as a group, with Unitree’s debut triggering a sell-the-news rotation across the sector.

Enthusiasm for Unitree has grown after the robot maker shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots last year, according to its prospectus. That makes the company the global leader in shipments of humanoid robots, far exceeding any US company. 

JPMorgan analysts have forecast that global shipments of humanoid robots will surge from 18,000 units in 2025 to 60,000 by the end of this year and to 1.75 million by 2030, with China accounting for more than half of global demand.

Readers should not be surprised that China is leading the humanoid-robotics race. We have outlined this trend on multiple occasions (see here).

Unitree IPO 5,550 Times Oversubscribed As UBS Says Grey Market Points To 3.5x Open 

The global market leader in humanoid-robot shipments, China-based Unitree, is set to begin trading on Shanghai’s STAR Market on Wednesday, potentially sparking a wave of robotics listings in Asia as the race for physical AI remains in its early innings. 

Unitree New Robot Preview: “Superman” Breaking the Limits of Humanity🥳
Standing high jump 2 m, top speed 12.66 m/s (0.85 m leg length)
Surpassing the standing high jump and running speed records of all humans around the world
This new machine has only been in development for a… pic.twitter.com/12i80ITU6p
— Unitree (@UnitreeRobotics) August 17, 2026
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Hangzhou-based company raised $900 million after pricing its shares at 150.80 yuan apiece, implying a valuation of about $9.1 billion. Retail demand was off the charts, with investors submitting 9.8 million orders and the offering more than 5,500 times oversubscribed. 

“Unitree’s IPO is significant because it provides an important A-share valuation benchmark for embodied AI and humanoid robotics,” Morningstar analyst Kangyuxiao Li said.

Jacqueline Du, Goldman’s head of China Industrial Technology research, recently explained that Unitree is the global market leader in humanoid-robot shipments: 

Global Market Leader: In 2025, Unitree shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots, capturing a 37% global market share, according to Omdia.

This volume far outstripped Western peers such as Tesla, Figure AI, and Agility Robotics, each of which shipped around 150 humanoid robots in 2025, according to public reports cited by Omdia.

That said, this leadership was achieved during the very early stages of the humanoid-robot industry, where technology is evolving rapidly and the competitive landscape remains fluid.

Wednesday’s IPO gives mainland investors direct exposure to one of China’s top robotics companies and could pave the way for future listings by its domestic competitors. 

UBS analyst Tony Chalmers noted:

Unitree is set for its first day of trading on the STAR Board on Aug. 19 at a CNY61 bn market cap, or 219x PS, with a free float of only ~30 mn shares, representing 7.4% of total shares. The grey market is pointing to a ~3.5x open.

The pre-IPO perpetual contract on the Hyperliquid platform – not Unitree stock or IPO allocation – is about $99.50 per contract; the market implies a Unitree valuation near $40 billion, based on roughly 404.5 million post-IPO shares. That is more than four times the reported $9.1 billion IPO valuation. 

In markets, the Solactive China Humanoid Robotics Index (Bloomberg ticker: SOLCHRBP Index), which tracks publicly traded Chinese companies involved in the humanoid-robotics supply chain, is down 18% year to date.

SOLCHRBP covers robot manufacturers and suppliers of AI systems, actuators, motion controls, sensors, automation equipment, and other components. 

Goldman’s Du highlighted how Unitree’s pricing advantage is mostly underpinned by “China’s supply-chain advantages.” Unitree offers robots priced from roughly $4,000 to $100,000, compared with about $150,000 to $1 million for Boston Dynamics models.

Unitree founders understood something the US robotics industry did not.
A robot engineers can afford to buy, break, modify, and buy again can create a much larger market than a perfect robot nobody can afford and people watch videos of online.
So Unitree shipped “Laikago” in… pic.twitter.com/GxHElhuOKG
— Gabriel (@gabriel_horwitz) August 18, 2026
Readers should not be surprised that China is leading the humanoid-robotics race. We have outlined this trend on multiple occasions (see here).

The U.S. invented the robot dog.
China is about to dominate the market.
Tomorrow Unitree starts trading at a $9bn valuation after selling 23,000 quadrupeds last year. We had a 15-year head start.
This is how America turned a research lead into a manufacturing loss…🧵 pic.twitter.com/lTBtmWmTv4
— Gabriel (@gabriel_horwitz) August 18, 2026
The big question is whether President Trump can close the gap, given that the US lacks the fully integrated supply chains needed to manufacture critical components, including rare-earth magnets and actuators that power these robots.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/19/2026 – 07:05

The Dead Sea Scrolls have fascinated me for years, not only because of what they tell us about Judaism and the biblical world, but because of what they tell us about one of the most disputed questions in the Middle East today: the historical connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.I have spent years advocating for peace and reconciliation between Muslims and Jews. And I have never understood why acknowledging the ancient Jewish connection to this land should be considered threatening to Muslims.In fact, I believe the Dead Sea Scrolls are one of Israel’s greatest defenses of its legitimacy. Far more powerful than Iron Dome or F35.The Scrolls demolish one argument that has become increasingly common in parts of the Arab and Western worlds: the claim that Jewish attachment to the land is a recent political invention created by Europeans in the nineteenth or twentieth century.FORMER VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: FIVE YEARS ON, THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS STILL POINT THE WAY TO PEACEThe Dead Sea Scrolls make that argument very difficult to sustain.Their modern story began in 1947, when Bedouin shepherds discovered ancient manuscripts in caves near Qumran, close to the Dead Sea. Over the following years, additional caves were discovered containing thousands of fragments representing hundreds of manuscripts dating from the final centuries before the Common Era and the first century A.D.They were written by Jews living in this region more than 2,000 years ago.When people discuss the Dead Sea Scrolls, they often imagine that the collection consists primarily of copies of the Hebrew Bible. Biblical manuscripts are certainly among its greatest treasures. The Great Isaiah Scroll, for example, is one of the most remarkable surviving biblical manuscripts in the world.But a large majority of the material discovered at Qumran was not simply biblical text.The collection also contains rules governing religious communities, prayers, legal discussions, biblical interpretations, hymns, wisdom literature and writings concerned with the end of days. Some texts tell us how members of particular Jewish communities organized themselves, disciplined their members and understood religious purity.That is one reason I find the Scrolls so much more interesting than merely saying, “Here is an old copy of the Bible.”They allow us to enter the intellectual and religious world of Jews who lived approximately two millennia ago.EXTREMISM THRIVES IN ‘KEYBOARD COURTROOM’ — AMERICA MUST THINK LIKE JURORS, NOT MOBSWe see how they prayed. We see how they interpreted Scripture. We see disagreements about religious law. We see their expectations of redemption and the Messiah. We even see the Hebrew and Aramaic languages they used.As someone fascinated by languages, manuscripts and the history of religion, I find that extraordinary. It also places the Scrolls remarkably close to another historical world that has always fascinated me: the world of Jesus.Jesus was a Galilean Jew born into the religious environment of Second Temple Judaism in Bethlehem. The Scrolls give us an extraordinary window into that broader environment.I cannot prove that Jesus ever entered the Qumran community, nor can anyone prove that he physically held one of the particular manuscripts later discovered in those caves.But I personally believe it is entirely possible that Jesus encountered or read texts belonging to the same scriptural tradition represented by the Dead Sea Scrolls (as he did with the Greek translation).The Gospel of Luke describes Jesus entering a synagogue, receiving the scroll of Isaiah and reading from it. Today, we possess a manuscript of Isaiah discovered near the Dead Sea that predates the time of Jesus.For me, there is something profound about that.As a Muslim, Jesus is also part of my religious tradition. We call him Al-Maseeh, the Messiah, (which ironically ultimately means the Savior of Israel and some Muslims reject Israel!) and the Quran speaks about him with tremendous reverence.So when I look at the Great Isaiah Scroll, I do not see something that belongs to a civilization completely foreign to me. I see part of the religious and historical landscape from which Christianity emerged and which Islam itself repeatedly acknowledges.This is why I believe Muslims should be among the last people to deny ancient Jewish history.The Quran is filled with the history of the Children of Israel (Bani Israel).THE WAR ON AMERICA’S JUDEO-CHRISTIAN ROOTS THREATENS EVERYTHING WE SHAREMoses is mentioned more frequently in the Quran than any other prophet. The Quran speaks of King David, Solomon, Aaron, Joseph and the tribes of Israel. It acknowledges the Torah and repeatedly places its own religious message in conversation with earlier Jewish and Christian traditions.There is therefore something deeply strange, in my view, about some Muslims feeling that we must erase Jewish history in order to defend Arab or Palestinian rights.I can acknowledge that the Jewish people have an ancient and undeniable relationship with this land while also acknowledging the humanity and legitimate aspirations of Palestinians (as long as it doesn’t revolve around annihilating Israel and Jews).Those two ideas are not mutually exclusive.Peace will never be built by creating historical amnesia.For decades, political arguments surrounding Israel have frequently moved beyond criticism of Israeli policy into something much more troubling: an attempt to deny Jewish history altogether.Israel can be criticized. Israeli governments can be criticized. Policies can be criticized.But criticism of a government should not require pretending that a nation did not exist on its ancestral homeland.And this is where the Dead Sea Scrolls become so powerful.They are silent witnesses.They do not participate in political debates. They do not appear on television. They do not care about modern ideologies.They tell us that Jewish communities lived in this land, copied Hebrew Scripture in this land, developed religious institutions in this land and debated the meaning of their faith in this land centuries before Islam appeared and centuries before modern European nationalism existed.SIGN UP FOR ANTISEMITISM EXPOSED NEWSLETTERThis is why I sometimes describe the Dead Sea Scrolls as one of Israel’s greatest weapons.I mean a weapon against historical denial.And unlike political propaganda, archaeological evidence does not need to shout.For me, this subject is also becoming increasingly personal.My academic background is software engineering, but over the years I have become deeply interested in the ancient languages, archaeology and religious history of our region.One of my greatest personal ambitions is to pursue doctoral studies in Israel focusing on the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.I want to study their Hebrew and Aramaic, the communities that produced them, their relationship with the Hebrew Bible and the world of Second Temple Judaism.There is something especially meaningful to me about the idea of an Arab Muslim studying ancient Jewish manuscripts in Israel.I have spent much of my public life arguing that Arabs and Israelis, Muslims and Jews do not have to remain prisoners of the political and religious conflicts inherited from previous generations. Real peace is not merely a treaty between governments. It is also an intellectual and cultural transformation.CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINIONIt happens when a Muslim becomes curious about Jewish history instead of frightened by it. It happens when an Arab studies Hebrew. It happens when Jews learn the history and language of their Arab neighbors. It happens when acknowledging another people’s story no longer feels like an attack on our own.The Dead Sea Scrolls cannot solve the Middle East conflict. But they can teach us something essential about how we approach it. History cannot become something we recognize only when it supports our political position.If archaeology proves something uncomfortable, we should not destroy the archaeology. We should adjust our understanding.For Muslims in particular, recognizing the Jewish people’s ancient connection to this land should not frighten us. It does not diminish Islam, and it does not require denying Palestinian identity or Palestinian suffering. It simply requires intellectual honesty.The Dead Sea Scrolls spent almost two thousand years hidden in caves. When they finally emerged, they brought with them the voices of an ancient Jewish world.We should have enough confidence in our own identities to listen to those voices.

Consuming a sugary drink a day may significantly raise the risk of developing stomach cancer, according to new research from Mass General Brigham.After accounting for other risk factors, the researchers found that one or more sugary drinks per day was linked to nearly triple the risk of gastric cancer compared with fewer than one serving per month.Roughly two-thirds (63%) of U.S. adults report consuming sugar-sweetened beverages at least once a day, CDC data states.BEER, WINE OR LIQUOR? MASSIVE STUDY REVEALS WHICH WAS LINKED TO LOWER DEATH RISKWhile earlier studies linked sugary drinks to higher rates of liver, breast and colorectal malignancies, their specific impact on gastric tissue remained unclear until now.The new study analyzed data from more than 100,000 participants in the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study.The long-term prospective cohort studies, which were managed by Harvard-affiliated researchers, analyzed links between lifestyle, diet and chronic disease among healthcare workers.DIRTY SODA DRINKS ARE EVERYWHERE, BUT DOCTORS WARN OF HEALTH RISKS: ‘METABOLIC DISASTER'”It’s definitely a concern because we are seeing an increase in cancers of the gastrointestinal tract, particularly in young people [under] 50,” senior author Andrew T. Chan, a gastroenterologist and epidemiologist with the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute in Boston, told Fox News Digital.”Our increasing consumption of sugary drinks and also ultraprocessed foods is likely to be contributing to some of these cancer trends,” he added.TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZGastric cancer is heavily linked to Helicobacter pylori bacteria, a type of bacteria that lives in the stomach lining. In a subset of study participants, there was no connection found between sugary drink intake and H. pylori, strengthening the hypothesis that sugar (fructose) plays a role.The researchers defined sugar-sweetened drinks as regular sodas, fruit punches, lemonade and sports beverages, in which fructose is the main sweetener. Higher fructose consumption was associated with greater stomach cancer risk.CLICK HERE FOR MORE HEALTH STORIESArtificially sweetened drinks, including diet sodas and other low-calorie carbonated drinks, were not linked to an increased risk of gastric cancer among more than 100,000 subjects.The research was observational, which means it could only show correlation and not direct causation.The participants were predominantly White healthcare professionals, meaning the findings need to be confirmed across diverse populations, the team acknowledged.CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER”The study is unable to really prove cause and effect,” Chan said. “What we did see was an association. We certainly need to do more research to understand whether this association between sugary sweetened beverages and stomach cancer is truly causal.”The study was published in the journal Gastro Hep Advances.

A federal $25 minimum wage mandate would destroy millions of jobs across the country and hit several of the Sun Belt states that have seen a significant influx of new residents in recent years, an economist warned in an interview with Fox News Digital.The warnings come in response to recent legislative efforts from progressive members of Congress pushing to raise the federal minimum wage floor to $25 per hour by 2031 for large employers, while smaller businesses would reach that rate by 2038. The proposal would also eliminate the federal tip credit, raising the direct cash wage requirement for tipped employees up to $25 per hour.Rebekah Paxton, research director at the conservative Employment Policies Institute (EPI), warned that a $25 federal mandate would be a total “job killer.”SANDERS-AOC BACKED PROGRESSIVE DEBUTS FEDERAL $25 MINIMUM WAGE BILL WITH COALITION OF 100+ ORGANIZATIONSThe EPI projects that the policy would slash nearly five million jobs nationwide. The group expects states including Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida to suffer the largest absolute job losses.”Some of the top states that are going to be impacted by a $25 minimum wage include Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Tennessee … These states have a massive workforce. They also currently abide by the federal $7.25 minimum-wage rate, so a $25 minimum wage represents more than tripling the current minimum wage applicable in those states,” Paxton told Fox News Digital.Texas, North Carolina and Florida have been among the primary beneficiaries of post-COVID migration. While major metropolitan areas, including Cook County, Illinois, and Los Angeles County, experienced population declines, U.S. Census figures show the Southeast is booming, with many of the fastest-growing counties in the nation concentrated in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina.”When you’re talking about doubling or tripling the minimum wage, you’re talking about doubling and tripling labor costs for businesses in those areas,” Paxton added. “There may be some businesses that try to absorb that through higher prices, but ultimately what we know from economists, business owners, and workers themselves is that it doesn’t always work.””In a lot of ways, it means business owners are going to have to slash jobs and reduce the number of hours that folks are able to work,” she explained. “Our report shows that that’s going to cost almost five million jobs across the country.LA HOTELS HIT BY LARGEST JOB LOSSES IN A DECADE AS ‘OLYMPIC WAGE’ MANDATES BITE, DATA SHOWSMore than one-third of the projected job losses are concentrated in the restaurant and hospitality industry, including 1.2 million tipped workers, according to the report.The federal government is facing renewed pressure from left-leaning activists to mandate a $25-an-hour minimum wage as the national affordability crisis continues to squeeze working-class families. The federal minimum wage has sat at $7.25 per hour since 2009.One Fair Wage, part of a national coalition of more than 100 advocacy organizations and labor unions pushing for the $25 floor, told Fox News Digital that voters across the political spectrum are mobilized by the issue.”We’re seeing so many MAGA voters excited about a $25 minimum wage,” said Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage. “We see people across the political spectrum — and frankly, the vast majority who are not politically affiliated at all — saying, ‘I don’t care about Republicans, Democrats, or Independents; what I care about is can I feed my family and who’s going to deliver for me?’”The federal push, anchored by legislative proposals like the Living Wage for All Act, is backed by progressive lawmakers including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and progressive organizing allies who support proposals such as Medicare for All, wealth taxes and immigration enforcement reform.The movement is also pursuing aggressive localized initiatives. In California and New York, local chapters and union partners have introduced “30 by ’30” ballot drives and municipal resolutions aimed at bringing minimum wages in high-cost cities like Oakland and New York City toward $30 per hour for major employers by the end of the decade.AOC-BACKED $25 MINIMUM WAGE PLAN SOUNDS GREAT — BUT AT WHAT COST?While proponents argue that steep wage hikes are necessary to keep pace with living costs, free-market economists and business groups caution that rapid government wage mandates will accelerate inflation and freeze entry-level hiring.Responding to the Employment Policies Institute’s claims, One Fair Wage told Fox News Digital that “America is in an affordability crisis because work does not pay enough.””The federal minimum wage has remained $7.25 since 2009, while rent, groceries, health care, and child care have continued to rise. Raising paychecks is as essential as lowering prices,” a spokesperson for One Fair Wage said.One Fair Wage added that “one job should be enough to live on” and that “Congress should pass the Living Wage For All Act and make that standard the law.””Workers across the country are organizing for $25 and $30 because that is what it takes to live. The Living Wage For All Act turns that worker-led demand into a national standard. The largest corporations move first, smaller businesses have years to adjust, and federal subminimum wages end — ensuring tipped workers receive the full minimum wage with tips on top,” the organization said.”That projection is inconsistent with decades of minimum-wage research,” it continued. “The Economic Policy Institute estimates that a federal minimum wage equal to two-thirds of the national median wage would raise pay for nearly 40 million workers. Research from UC Berkeley economist Michael Reich and the Roosevelt Institute finds that ambitious, phased increases at this level raise incomes broadly with little effect on overall employment.”

Democrats are fighting to stop the Trump administration’s attempt to get 146,000 homeless people with serious mental illness the help they need.In late July, House and Senate Democrats launched an inquiry accusing the Trump administration of wanting to “return to a time when people with disabilities were denied basic civil rights.” But there’s one problem: the system these Democrats are defending is the reason there are so many mentally ill people living in squalor on America’s streets.Until recently, when it came to helping the mentally ill homeless, states had their hands tied. For decades, government lawyers interpreted the Supreme Court’s 1999 Olmstead decision extremely broadly, pushing states to offer “community-based care.”HOUSING FIRST IS A DISASTER. I SAW SACRAMENTO’S HOMELESS CHAOS FIRSTHANDFor the seriously mentally ill, this meant independent living in single units where mental health and substance abuse treatment was optional – and often refused. In June, the Department of Justice released a controversial legal opinion that would fix this by revamping federal oversight of state mental healthcare.The Trump administration’s new framework allows states to offer small-scale, affordable supportive housing options, such as community-based group homes, that would provide court-ordered treatment to people (often homeless) who are disabled by mental illness or substance abuse issues.Intermediate housing options like this have historically been difficult to establish and maintain because of unrealistic regulations that put resident autonomy above safety and clinical need, preventing states from building a middle ground between hospitalization and community-based care. For the first time in three decades, states may finally be able to meet this crucial but ignored need.The administration’s new approach would not involve a reversion to large state psychiatric hospitals, which offer few opportunities for federal reimbursement and, at an average cost of $1,400 per patient, per day, are too expensive to rely on except when truly necessary.SEATTLE CLEANED UP FOR THE WORLD CUP BUT ONLY WHILE THE WORLD WAS WATCHING, COMMENTATOR SAYSBut even so, activist groups claim that this shift “open[s] the doors for states to revert to warehousing people,” evoking the dark imagery of midcentury American asylums. This is fearmongering, plain and simple. It conveniently ignores the squalid conditions — and public safety risks — created by the current system, which too often “warehouses” homeless people in dangerous outdoor encampments.As anyone who has walked the streets of an American city knows, mental illness and addiction among the homeless are urgent problems. Tens of thousands of Americans with serious mental disorders, severe substance-use disorders, or both live outside, where they pose a danger to themselves and the public.They face high levels of victimization, crime, disease, and premature mortality. They are also the most likely of all homeless subpopulations to resist outreach, because of the effect of severe mental illness on brain function and reasoning.This catastrophe of homeless mental illness is decades in the making. Since 1992, the federal government has asserted unprecedented authority over state behavioral health systems. Through federal regulations and the landmark Olmstead case, states have been forced to focus their resources disproportionately on voluntary mental healthcare in communities.KAREN BASS GRILLED OVER BROKEN HOMELESSNESS PROMISE, BLAMES BUREAUCRACY FOR SLOWED PROGRESSThis form of care is important, but it is also the least appropriate form of care for the most severely mentally ill who require a level of daily structure and support that is incompatible with living isolated in single-occupancy units in the community.As a result, states have faced a difficult choice: they can comply with federal law and neglect the most seriously ill patients in their care, or provide the necessary care and risk federal litigation. After decades of choosing the latter and losing in court, most states now choose the former.Before the DOJ’s recent memo, the risk of federal litigation was so great that states created so-called “Olmstead Plans” that set benchmarks for reducing the populations of state psychiatric hospitals, regardless of whether this was appropriate with respect to patient well-being and public safety.As a result, since 1990, states have eliminated tens of thousands of psychiatric hospital beds. By 2016, fewer than 38,000 beds remained nationwide – a 96% decrease compared to the 1950s – even as the U.S. population grew by 110%.SEATTLE MAYOR REFUSES TO GRADE HERSELF AS CRIME, HOMELESSNESS SURGEThis trend was amplified by state-level watchdogs, known as protection and advocacy agencies, that historically focused on investigating abuse and neglect in psychiatric institutions, but now focus primarily on pressuring hospitals to release patients under threat of litigation. Tragically, tens of thousands of these patients end up homeless or in the criminal justice system due to premature or inappropriate release.Even at the time of the Olmstead ruling, Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer foresaw this concerning possibility, which has since come to pass. As Kennedy wrote in his Olmstead concurrence, quoting Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: “It is careful, and quite correct, to say that it is not ‘the ADA’s mission to drive States to move institutionalized patients into an inappropriate setting, such as a homeless shelter.’”Federal policies may have “liberated” them from psychiatric hospitals, but those same policies now banish them to conditions that rival the poorest places in the world.CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINIONThe history of institutional abuse in this country is real, and the vigilance of earlier generations of disability rights advocates helped end some of its worst practices. But learning from the mistakes of the past shouldn’t mean ignoring the evidence of the present: the current system, built to prevent one form of harm, has left tens of thousands to face worsening illnesses, unsheltered and untreated on the street.The Trump administration is right to revisit federal regulations in light of that evidence. The tragedy is not that these changes are coming — it’s that they took so long.

Jeff Currie: Forget $91 Brent, The Real Crisis Is $170 Diesel

Brent at $90.94 looks almost civilized. Jeff Currie thinks that is exactly the problem: everyone is staring at crude while the real energy shock is already showing up in the fuels people actually buy.

As OilPrice reports, “Nobody on the planet earth consumes crude oil,” Currie told CNBC. Refineries do. Everyone else consumes gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, and those markets look considerably uglier.

European diesel was trading around $170 per barrel during the interview, Currie said, almost twice Brent’s current $90.94. WTI was trading at $84.94 Tuesday.

Historically, crude and refined-product prices moved closely enough that crude served as a reasonable shorthand for the broader energy market. Currie says that relationship has broken down.

Part of the disconnect came from roughly 100 million to 120 million barrels of crude trapped inside the Strait of Hormuz following a surge in supplies in late June and early July. China then cut refinery runs, which helped keep crude prices softer but made product supplies tighter.

In other words, China did not solve the shortage. It moved it downstream.

Currie also argues governments have spent decades creating an “illusion of abundance” during supply disruptions by releasing strategic reserves and talking markets down. That strategy has worked before. This disruption, he said, is different because of its scale, duration, and the increasingly tight product market.

The inflation implications are considerably less academic. CNBC noted that gasoline prices are about 30% higher than a year ago, while diesel is up 46%. Diesel feeds directly into trucking, shipping and industrial costs.

Currie expects the crude-product dislocation to eventually correct as refiners chase historically high margins and increase runs.

Until then, $91 Brent may be giving investors a comforting picture of an oil market that consumers stopped living in weeks ago.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/19/2026 – 06:55

Target is expected to report its fiscal second-quarter results Wednesday morning as the retailer offers a window into its turnaround progress.

7 Federal Agencies & Big Pharma Quietly Built A Pandemic-Industrial Complex

Authored by Jon Fleetwood via substack,

Nearly 14 years before COVID-19, HHS created the Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise (PHEMCE) and centralized federal health, biomedical, regulatory, homeland-security, and military functions around a government-directed countermeasure pipeline.

Creating what this website refers to as the Pandemic-Industrial Complex (PIC).

PHEMCE centralized seven named federal agencies and components (ASPR, CDC, FDA, NIH, DOD, DHS, and VA) across four Cabinet departments: HHS, DOD, DHS, and VA.

Private industry was explicitly inserted into that structure.

HHS named pharmaceutical manufacturers, biotechnology companies, clinical research organizations, and private research organizations.

Then it proposed increasing industry access to HHS agencies, streamlining regulation, lowering obstacles to private investment, and applying liability protections.

The government’s own documents show the same apparatus stretching from threat detection and intelligence assessments through research, product development, regulation, procurement, stockpiling, deployment, and use.

The national-security conflict is obvious.

What happens when the government institutions helping define an alleged biological threat are centralized with the institutions funding research around it, determining what product should be made, regulating that product, buying it, and organizing its deployment?

And what happens if research financed or overseen within the wider biodefense ecosystem contributes to producing the very threat that activates that apparatus?

Congress, the White House, the Department of Energy, the FBI, the CIA, and Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) all acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic was “likely” the result of a laboratory incident involving engineered pathogens.

HHS itself warned in 2006 that laboratory-engineered organisms:

“might even be mistaken as naturally occurring emerging agents.”

That warning makes the conflict much harder to dismiss.

DARPA’s PROPHECY, ADEPT, P3 and PREEMPT programs provide a concrete example of what this PHEMCE architecture looked like inside DOD: military programs moved from predicting alleged viral evolution to sequence-based pharmaceuticals, compressed countermeasure timelines and animal-virus surveillance, while DEFUSE proposed applying that machinery specifically to SARS-related bat coronaviruses.

HHS Creates PHEMCE & Orders Government & Industry to ‘Align & Synchronize’

HHS’s September 8, 2006, draft PHEMCE Strategy states:

“HHS created the Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise (PHEMCE) in July 2006… The PHEMCE is a coordinated interagency effort led by HHS and charged with the responsibility to: (1) Define and prioritize requirements for public health medical emergency countermeasures; (2) coordinate research, early- and advanced product development and procurement activities to address the requirements; and (3) set deployment and use strategies for medical countermeasures held in the Strategic National Stockpile.”

HHS then defined the reach of the apparatus:

“The PHEMCE Strategy defines the principles and objectives that will guide our Implementation Plan for the entire PHEMCE-surveillance/detection of threats; research, development, acquisition, storage/maintenance, deployment and utilization of medical countermeasures.”

The government justified this concentration by citing alleged CBRN and biological threats, then demanded:

“unprecedented cooperation among all levels of Government, private industry, academia, international partners and the public.”

And under HHS leadership:

“we must align and synchronize efforts on the part of all key stakeholders involved in the PHEMCE.”

HHS also explicitly inserted private industry into the product-development system:

“Private research organizations, pharmaceutical manufacturers, biotechnology companies, and clinical research organizations already have many of the resources and the expertise needed to develop MCM but have been reluctant to make substantial investments in research and development because of market uncertainties.”

Then:

“HHS will work to streamline the regulatory process for medical countermeasures. HHS will facilitate private investment of time, energy and resources in MCM development by removing or lowering obstacles whenever appropriate, including the application of liability protections where appropriate.”

And one passage reveals what HHS itself counted as a “benefit”:

“As with the definition of costs, benefits also go beyond the simple definition of ‘curing disease’ and include concepts such as overall lifecycle of the medical countermeasure including storage, utilization and deployment.”

That is the conflict in plain language.

PHEMCE was not organized solely around whether a product cured disease.

HHS explicitly counted the product’s storage, utilization, and deployment as part of its “benefit.”

The 2007 Plan Turns PHEMCE Into an ‘End-to-End’ Threat-to-Product Pipeline

The April 2007 implementation plan described the centralized structure this way:

“The HHS Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise (PHEMCE) has taken a holistic, end-to-end approach that considers multiple aspects of the medical countermeasures mission including research, development, acquisition, storage, maintenance, deployment, and guidance for utilization.”

It then names the agencies:

“HHS PHEMCE is a coordinated, intra-agency effort led by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) and includes three HHS internal agencies: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Additionally, HHS PHEMCE collaborates with its ex officio members: the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and other interagency stakeholders as appropriate.”

The plan then lays out the threat-to-product sequence.

HHS said medical-countermeasure requirements would incorporate:

“subject matter expert evaluations, domestic and international intelligence information”

and immediately moved to:

“Identify and prioritize near-, mid-, and long-term development and acquisition programs”

for products potentially covering:

“the entire U.S. population.”

Government procurement could then be sized to:

“drive industrial development of the medical countermeasure.”

NIH was ordered to align its research with PHEMCE priorities:

“NIH will align research and development efforts with the PHEMCE priority medical countermeasure programs.”

And HHS wanted:

“a sustainable, continuous stream of promising medical countermeasures in the pipeline that are aligned with top priority HHS PHEMCE requirements for future acquisitions”

The same plan sought technologies permitting:

“rapid identification and characterization of novel threat agents”

followed by:

“rapid production of new vaccines.”

That is the architecture.

Threat designation → intelligence → product requirement → research → industrial development → acquisition → deployment.

Bottom Line

The two HHS documents confirm PHEMCE centralized seven named federal agencies and components across four Cabinet departments while explicitly inserting pharmaceutical and biotechnology interests into the same government-directed countermeasure structure.

HHS ordered participants to “align and synchronize,” proposed streamlined regulation, lower barriers and liability protections for private developers, contemplated government financing through clinical trials, and said government purchases could “drive industrial development.”

NIH was ordered to maintain a “sustainable, continuous stream” of products aligned with “future acquisitions.”

And HHS itself acknowledged that laboratory-engineered organisms could be “mistaken as naturally occurring emerging agents.”

In all, the documents reveal the central conflict of the Pandemic-Industrial Complex: the same broader government system can help define an alleged biological threat, finance research around it, determine the product requirements, integrate private industry, influence regulation, create the market through procurement, purchase the resulting products and organize their deployment.

That conflict is no longer merely hypothetical.

A laboratory incident involving coronavirus research is itself a mainstream hypothesis under consideration for the origin of COVID-19.

If COVID-19 resulted from research connected to the same wider U.S.-funded biodefense and pandemic-preparedness ecosystem represented inside this apparatus, the implications would extend far beyond public health: a government-connected research ecosystem could be implicated in causing an international biological catastrophe while interconnected institutions within that wider system possessed roles in assessing its origin, controlling relevant information and intelligence, and directing the resulting countermeasure response.

Who independently investigates the system when the system itself may be implicated?

And if a government-connected research ecosystem can potentially contribute to producing the biological catastrophe, while the wider apparatus can then define the threat, finance the response, create the product requirements, “drive industrial development” and organize deployment, does the resulting emergency expose the system—or give that same system more money, authority, and power?

Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/19/2026 – 06:30